The promise of personalisation: Exploring how music streaming platforms are shaping the performance of class identities and distinction

Abstract

Not only do music streaming platforms offer on-demand access to vast catalogues of licensed music, they are actively shaping what and how it finds us through personalisation. While existing literature has highlighted how personalisation has the potential to transform the part that music taste and consumption play in the performance of class identities and distinction, little is empirically known about its sociological consequences. Drawing on 42 semi-structured interviews with a combination of key informants and Spotify users, this article demonstrates that personalisation is undermining opportunities to achieve social distinction by taking over the labour of music curation and compressing the time needed to appreciate music for its own sake. It demonstrates that those with cultural capital at stake – in the case of this study, young, (primarily) male cultural omnivores – experience personalisation as a threat, highlighting how particular claims to social distinction are being contested in the platform age.

What My Music Says About Me: Re-evaluating the ‘Badge’ Function of Music in the Context of Streaming

“…(2008: 29) For our participants, music was inextricably linked to their unique experience and could not be used to quickly convey information about themselves to strangers. This evolving relationship between music and the self seems to interact with technological advances that allow for increased exploration and personalization of musical repertoires (Webster, 2021), as well as an increased presence and control over music in everyday life. Thus, we see a dual relationship between two forces: on the one hand, the individualization of practices and identity construction projects, interacting on the other hand with technological advances in the music industry.…”

Digital subscribers: Between freedom and constraint

“…However, as the answer to the second research question will detail, the fragmentation of content, like series or movies, in multiple platforms make the respondents constantly wish for a bundle with a single platform per type of content. Now, on to the second research query, concerning the affordances and limitations experienced by digital subscribers in their use of such services, the most prominent aspect in the set of affordances experienced by subscribers participating in the study is the flexibility and freedom offered by these services to customize their consumption and entertainment experience (Rodríguez Ortega, 2023;Turow, 2017;Webster, 2021). Subscribers to digital services find some advantages and possibilities in their daily use of these services, whether it is the simplicity of starting, suspending, or canceling a subscription, the convenience of using these services in almost any location or context, or, as occurs in the on-demand culture (Pilipets, 2019;Tryon, 2013), the ability to customize the user experience by being able to consume content according to the users' habits, routines, or tastes.…”

“…One of the results of the technological evolution of these recommendation systems is the personalization of the media experience in which platforms presume their users’ preferences (Turow, 2017). For example, streaming services generate highly personalized experiences through planned differentiation that seeks to shape their users’ preferences (Rodríguez Ortega, 2023; Webster, 2021). One consequence of this customization closely linked to algorithmic power and culture is the commercial exploitation that digital platforms conduct of their users’ data (Kübler et al, 2021).…”

The Psychology of Personalization in Digital Environments: From Motivation to Well-Being – A Theoretical Integration

“…How the personalization of music streaming affects social relations, however, remains relatively unclear. One could hypothesize that personalization ultimately disrupts the shared social sphere, which might be particularly problematic for autonomously motivated music listeners who place great emphasis on sharing and discussing music with others or who use music as a means to achieve social distinction (e.g., Webster, 2021). However, personalization could also enable the formation of new social groups who share an interest in the same kind of music (e.g., Park & Kaneshiro, 2021).…”